Avs bury Oilers in first period

NHL -- AVALANCHE 4 - OILERS 2

EDMONTON -- With his heart on the sleeve of his new jersey, Ryan Smyth watched his past flash before him in a pre-game video tribute that drew tears from the former Edmonton Oilers winger.

Soon after, too many soft goals flashed before the eyes of the Oilers, but there were no tears, no signs of resignation, and no jaws clenched in anger after the Colorado Avalanche rolled out of Rexall Place with a 4-2 win Tuesday.

"I thought the effort was there," said Raffi Torres after the Oilers record dropped to 3-6. "It's just going to take us capitalizing on some opportunities out there and I think we'll be all right.

"There are a lot of frustrated guys in here," he continued, "but I think the main thing is we have to work off one another, we have to establish what kind of team we're going to be."

Smyth was kept off the scoreboard in his first game back in his old haunt, but the Avalanche needed just 10 minutes to secure its first road win of the season.

Colorado pounced on loose pucks, took advantage of the Oilers' inability to clear the zone and, before the first period was even over, had a 3-1 lead to work with.

"This was probably our best effort but just some soft goals in front of the net. That's unacceptable," said Andrew Cogliano, the fabulous freshman who set up Edmonton's first goal.

"We're not scoring goals like that.

Other teams shouldn't be either.

"Obviously, it gets to you when you think about it, you want to start winning. That's the atmosphere you want to be in," he added.

Nine minutes after Smyth was feted with a video on the big screen, Tyler Arnason rang a dandy shot in off the post to put the visitors out in front. It was the seventh time this season the Oilers have given up the game's first goal.

The unassisted marker held until Oilers rookie Cogliano rocketed down the ice to set up Dustin Penner's second goal of the season. But, as has often been the case this season, the Oilers couldn't hang onto the momentum.

Just 23 seconds after Penner beat Peter Budaj, Jaroslav Hlinka picked up a loose puck in the slot and put his first NHL goal past Dwayne Roloson.

The Avs then pulled out to a 3-1 lead when Wojtek Wolski redirected a puck that had ricocheted off the skate of Oilers defenceman Tom Gilbert.

The Avalanche had a 14-10 advantage on the shot clock and a 3-1 lead on the scoreboard by the time this game was 20 minutes old.

"Seven or eight minutes ... it cost us three goals," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said. "We had trouble protecting the front of the net during that time.

"But we had lots of opportunity to get back in the game."

The Oilers did test Budaj in the second period but the net result was the same.

The goaltender started things off with a big save on Shawn Horcoff, then turned away a Jarret Stoll slapshot, stopped a Cogliano backhander and, on the Oilers' first power play of the night, had only one shot to contend with.

The power play is now one for 35, after a very brief advantage in the dying seconds of the third period.

The club's record against divisional opponents is 0-5.

"You never want to get into the habit of rationalizing losses," MacTavish said. "We certainly feel if we had executed for 60 minutes, we would have got the win. There's no question about that so we're disappointed by the result. But I'm not unhappy with the way that we played."

Tom Gilbert, with his second goal of the season, closed the gap to 3-2 when he snapped in a shot at 10:45 of the third period.

It sparked a frenetic finish but the Oilers could not come up with the equalizer.

Colorado defenceman Brett Clark finally put the game away with an empty net goal at 19:42.

jireland@thejournal.canwest.com

RYAN'S RETURN

Watch an audio slide show of Ryan Smyth's return to Edmonton, and read David Staples's blog on the subject.

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